A Novel Idea #5

Hey, young bloods! Today I'm linking up with Sky and Ashley for A Novel Idea, a fabulous weekly writing link-up. This week, the prompt is to give the run-down on one of your favorite characters to write - why do you like them? What do they look like? Snippets? And who better to choose than my smol sweet angel from my novella Heaven Bleeds Fire, Safildor?

IT'S A COUCH FOR PITY'S SAKE.

My favorite thing about writing Safi is definitely the many layers he has. For most characters I have to work at developing all the different notes and flavors in their personality, but with Safi it came naturally right away. He's just so naive and endearing and hilarious all at the same time, and the character development and torture (mainly the torture) I put him through is SO SO FUN.

Smol Snippets for a Smol Angel:

Forget iHop, Safi decided. Denny's was in a jiffy.

(This was a phrase he had learned from Khadir. He wasn't quite sure what it meant, so he'd been using it in different contexts and judging the others' reactions. He was fairly sure that this time he'd gotten it right.)

---

Lonely - what a strange word to an angel. In Heaven, he had been in the vicinity of God the Father at all times. He had known a total completeness, a joy, a feeling of being incomprehensibly filled to the brim with love and happiness. Even when he got into fights with other angels, he always ended the day feeling happy and warm because God was here, where he was, and Safi knew he would be taken care of. The sublime joy of Heaven, the company of other angels, and the oversight of God had kept him feeling cared for and protected at all times, but now he was out in a cold, dark world, a whole other physical plane, where he was empty and hollow and felt like a piece of his soul had been cut out and thrown away. He longed to reach out into the darkness, grasping and straining like a blind man, to grab onto his Creator's hand or even Gabriel's and be told that everything would be okay, that he was going to be protected - but he knew that if he reached out his arm, he would only be greeted by the cold of unforgiving night. There would be no one, there could be no one, he was cut off from Heaven entirely, and he doubled over in an attempt to warm and fill the hollow coldness inside him. It didn't work.

He had begun this day in the light of an orange sunrise on the outskirts of Eden, foolishly eager for battle, for the chance to fight for a better world. And he had been stripped and beaten and bled and wrung out until all his angry energy, all his happy energy, all his anything was gone. He would have cried if he had any tears left. He felt like a fruit which had shriveled up in the sun and now had no moe taste to it - he was just a limp pile of flesh and bone. Even the ability to feel was stripped from him, and so he laid exhausted and depleted and miserable and mourned silently in his head for the memory of emotion.

---

"The Bible says homosexuality is wrong," Viola pointed out. It was not in a negative way, simply in an interested one. She was gauging Safi's reaction.

"Yes, well." Safi shifted uncomfortably. "I - uh. Certainly the Bible says that, and the big police-y angels, Michael and Gabriel among them, always make a point of enforcing that law. But, well - I know some angels who are homosexual. And the Bible also says you're not allowed to eat shrimp, and I don't see any mass protests outside seafood eateries."

Viola laughed, her hair shimmering.

Safi sighed. "Is it that obvious?"

Viola tipped her head up to the ceiling, a grin splitting her face. "Safi," she said. "I've never had good 'gaydar' by any means. In fact, I'm notoriously bad at it. But even I could sense your bisexuality from a mile away."

"You might as well walk around with a neon sign," added Khadir.

---

Let's chat! How are your WIP characters? Are you doing A Novel Idea? (Link me if you are!) Comment below, and remember that you are all very beautiful pickles. <3

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Comments

Every time I read about this novella, I just wanna reach through the computer and see it for myself! Safi sounds amazing, and I lie how he isn't an ALL KNOWING BALL OF PERFECTION like some totally unrealistic characters are: he is naïve, he is flawed and (although he's an angel) he is as human as the rest of us.

I wanted to cry when I read about 'mourning for emotion'! POOR LITTLE SAFI LET ME GIVE YOU A HUG!!!

I'm not, unfortunately, as November is always the busiest month of the year in terms of school. My semester ends in early December, so the teachers always start cramming us with information the month before. I'll definitely be cheering you on, though!